“名伦等物不失其理”——董仲舒的“物”哲学

It Is Not Against Ethics and Law to Call Other People According to Their Nobility and Inferiority and to Treat Things According to Their Grades: Dong Zhongshu’s Philosophy of “Things”

儒家素来有重视“名物”的传统。在《春秋繁露》对于“名号”的论述中,亦涉及“名物”的议题。与孔子之《诗》教主张“多识草木鸟兽之名”,突出名物故训的含义不同,董仲舒所谓“名物”指的是以“名”命“物”的基本规定。而董子以《春秋》诠释为基础,所主张的“名伦等物”则兼人伦与庶物而为言。这一点在对于“名”所具有的“真物”与“别物”的分析中可以进一步说明。“名之为言真”,勾连起“名”与“物”的关联;“名”之能“别物”则分殊万物,并赋予秩序,对“物”而言则是“理”,对“人”而言即是“义”。而万物系之于天,又以阴阳之耦合、类推之方式勾连为一个相互关联的世界图式。这正是“物”作为代表一切存在者,却“日用而不知”的范畴在董仲舒整个思想架构中的意义。

Confucianism has always had the tradition of attaching importance to the naming of things. In the discussion of “names” in Luxuriant Gems of The Spring and Autumn Annals, the issue of naming things is also involved. Different from what Confucius advocated in the “Poems” that “The names of plants, trees, birds and beasts should be known so as to highlight the interpretation of the connotations and origins of named things. Dong Zhongshu’s so-called naming things refers to the basic stipulation of naming “things” by “names”. However, based on the interpretation of The Spring and Autumn Annals, he advocated that names should be rectified based on the interpersonal matters and activities and things should be ranked based on the size or weight of physical matters, which involves human relations and common things. And it could be further explained in the analysis of the function of names, which includes “reflecting things” and “distinguishing things”;the former links the relationship between “names” and “things”, and the latter differentiates all things and give them order. For “things”, it means “law”, and for “people” it means “righteousness”. And all things are related to heaven and linked together to form an interrelated world through the coupling of yin and yang and the way of analogy. This is exactly the significance of “things” which are the representatives of all beings and used every day but ignored” in Dong Zhongshu’s entire ideological framework.